The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The very title told me that I was unlikely to enjoy this movie. Nevertheless, it has strong recommendations from multiple horror-loving sources, and I didn't doubt its influence, predating all other slasher flicks that I know of except Psycho. And hey, if I could tolerate the saw scene in Scarface, I might be fine with this.

Five young adults take a van to rural Texas, because someone's been desecrating graves for macabre art where the grandfather of two of them was buried. The area is so remote that a gas station attendant says there won't be any gas for hours. The gang hangs out at the dead grandfather's old house, and two of them head out for fun. They get more excitement than they bargained for, as do the others when they come looking. You probably don't need a hint, but there is a slaughterhouse nearby....

Yeah, as usual for a low-budget production, the plot is sparse. This may have helped sell the lie (common in the era of The Exorcist) that it was based on a true story. I actually half-suspected it was before I ever heard the claim. Maybe people assumed as much from the initial narrated screen text (yup, written and spoken). Well, it did take inspiration from the life of Ed Gein, despite little resemblance to Psycho or The Silence of the Lambs.

Similarly, there's not much to the dialog or the characters, none of whose actors went on to bigger-name works. What little we know about the five youths is pretty annoying. Most aren't very considerate to the one wheelchair user in the group, and he squanders viewer pity with his own childishness. That's by design. I guess the makers didn't want our fear mixed with too much sorrow.

And the killer? I'd heard of Leatherface, but I had only the foggiest notion that the gibbering, constantly masked imbecile didn't always work alone. He has an aiding and abetting, if not also murderous, family. It's almost comical. Strangely enough, they all appear to have different motives, one of which beggars belief. That and a seemingly very dead character turning out not to be are about as close as TTCSM gets to fantasy.

The on-screen violence is not as gruesome as I had assumed. Only one character dies by the saw, and we don't really see it. Unfortunately for Tobe Hooper, this did not persuade the MPAA to let it go below an R rating.

We do see some actual injuries, however unscripted. From what I read, the film was an ordeal for pretty much everyone involved in making it, for several reasons. You might call that another reason to watch: You're making their effort less of a waste.

I'll let that be my extra comfort. For my part, I found it more ghoulish than scary, and only some of the uses of human and animal remains struck me as imaginative. At least it's a mere 83 minutes and could easily have been worse.